Detroit Pistons Have a Much Nicer Locker Room This Season

The Detroit Pistons have new owners, and while those guys have yet to figure out how to improve the roster, they’ve turned the locker room area into a much nicer place (as part of a $9 million facelift for the Palace of Auburn Hills). Reports the Detroit Free Press: “A newly refurbished locker room that is larger and features better lighting and technology. A roomy training room with saunas and several massage tables. A huge modern-looking players’ lounge with a big-screen TV and other amenities. Those are just a few of the changes that Pistons owner Tom Gores and Palace Sports & Entertainment president Dennis Mannion have pushed through at the Palace in a few short months. The players have done more than pay lip service to the changes. Guys who used to rush home as soon as their responsibilities ended are now lingering around the facilities to take advantage of the new digs. Most of the Pistons are millionaires, so the team really had to do it up right to make an impression. ‘There’s a really functional part to it, too, because with the millions comes pressure and a lot different directions that nobody can comprehend what they go through with friends and family and fans — especially in the day and age of new media where they’re onstage all the time, so we wanted to have an area where we felt they could focus and that’s a big part of the change,’ Mannion said after he conducted a tour at the Palace.”